News 15:00

BULLETIN 22 July Month 3 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# ActionSA accuses President Ramaphosa of stalling justice in the Chauke suspension saga
# The NPA confirms that one suspect in the DJ Sumbody murder seeks bail, with the gun linked to ten crimes
# And, Humans beat Artificial Intelligence at the International Mathematical Olympiad

# ActionSA says the suspension of the South Gauteng Director of Public Prosecutions, Andrew Chauke, is long overdue and highlights the continued delays in reforming the justice system. The party accuses president Cyril Ramaphosa of dragging his feet despite a suspension request from the head of the National Prosecuting Authority, Shamila Batohi, in 2023. ActionSA’s Athol Trollip says Chauke is linked to several questionable decisions, including dropping corruption charges against the ANC’s Zizi Kodwa:

ActionSA also says Ramaphosa’s appointment of Buti Manamela as Higher Education and Training minister is no cause for celebration. The party says Manamela has served as deputy minister since 2017 and has been seated at the centre of the department’s decline. Spokesperson Malebo Kobe says his promotion is not a clean-up, but a missed opportunity to clean house entirely. She adds that ActionSA has consistently called for bold reforms to turn this sector around:

# The National Prosecuting Authority will oppose bail for one of the four accused in the 2022 murder of DJ Sumbody. The accused, including the former provincial manager of the National Lotteries Board in Gauteng, Katiso KT Molefe, appeared in the Alexandra Magistrate’s Court this morning. Police confirmed the murder weapon is linked to ten other crimes, including the murder of Armand Swart, who was wrongly identified after his company blew the whistle on a Transnet tender. The NPA’s Phindi Mjonondwane calls it a major breakthrough:

# Cricket: India must make a difficult decision before tomorrow’s start of the penultimate Test against England at Old Trafford. The visitors are trailing 1-2 and must decide on the participation of the world’s best Test bowler. Jasprit Bumrah is nursing a back injury and it was decided beforehand he would only play in three matches. He already played in two but with the series at risk, the gamble is whether to use him to try and win the fourth Test or spare him for a potential series decider.

# The financial indicators: The dollar trades at 17-rand-62-cents and the euro at 20-rand-61-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-75-cents and Bitcoin trades at 118-thousand-988-dollars. Gold sells at three-thousand-387-dollars-1-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 67-dollars-90-cents a barrel.

# And finally, humans have beaten generative AI models made by Google and OpenAI at the international mathematics Olympiad in Queensland, Australia. Neither model scored full marks, unlike five young people at the prestigious annual competition where participants must be under 20 years old. Google says an advanced version of its Gemini chatbot had solved five out of the six math problems. This is a score of 35 out of a possible 42 – a gold medal score for the first time. Around 10-percent of human contestants won gold-level medals.

Stay tuned for more news………….